Olympics

Missy Franklin tries to ignore great expectations as Olympic Trials loom in swimming

Regis Jesuit's Missy Franklin, 16, is expected to make the U.S. Olympic team and be a medal favorite in multiple events. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

Franklin knows the pressure will be huge at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha in June. (John Leyba, Denver Post file)

CENTENNIAL — For Missy Franklin, her Olympic dreams really are just that. They're reserved for sleep, that precious time when her subconscious drifts off into national anthems and international TV lights.

Awake, she returns to Regis Jesuit High School junior, a normal teenager with other interests besides the expectations of a swimming world clamoring for a new heroine. Why worry about the London Olympics when you have a prom dress to buy? The Olympic Trials in June? Hey, right now a bigger concern is her research paper on poet Countee Cullen.

The London Olympics are just over 100 days away. Anyone who has followed Franklin's career, even in the past nine months, knows what's in front of her. Using last year's rankings, since many countries have already posted bests at their Olympic Trials this year, the 16-year-old ranked first in the world in the 200 freestyle and 200 backstroke. She was first in the United States and seventh in the world in the 100 freestyle and second in the United States and fifth in the world in the 100 backstroke.

If form holds, she'll make the Olympic team in at least four individual events and three relays. Besides relays, she could be a medal favorite in two individual events.

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After she won three gold medals at last summer's World Championships in Shanghai, China, Sports Illustrated called her "the breakout star of the U.S. team." Michael Phelps said, "She's a stud."

Pretty heavy expectations for a 16-year-old. How does she handle them? Like a typical 16-year-old.

"I'm completely ignoring them," said Franklin, sitting in her family living room in suburban Denver. "I'm not even thinking about it. I love all the support I'm getting and all the good- luck wishes and everything from everyone. But you know what? They can expect anything they want to, but the only thing I need to focus on is myself and what I want to do and what my expectations are.

"That's all that matters."

Easing the burden, Team Franklin recently cut back on media interviews. The less Missy talks about swimming, the less she has to think about swimming. Besides, she doesn't read anything written about her.

Yet anyone who knows Franklin knows what her expectations are. They're not about herself. They're about others. Her mother, D.A., said when Missy was younger, her goals weren't just to win. She just didn't want to disappoint anyone.

"I still feel like that," Missy said. "When I go to a meet, I want to swim fast for everyone who came out to see me swim and see the whole meet and see everyone else. I want to put on a good show for them. If I do the best that I can, no matter what, it would be hard to disappoint myself."

"Right now my expectation is to get to Trials," she said. "I know everyone tells me it's the most high-pressure meet you'll ever go to. It's just crazy. Honestly, my biggest expectation for myself is not to let that pressure get to me."

Fortunately for her, she has been there before. Buried under Phelps' gilded march to eight Olympic gold medals and Dara Torres making the Olympic team at age 41, little 13-year-old Missy Franklin competed in the Olympic Trials in 2008.

She set personal records in every event: the 50 and 100 freestyle and the 200 individual medley. Of course, this time the national focus will be on her as much as the Ryan Lochte-Phelps rivalry. But knowing what the pool in Omaha's CenturyLink Center looks like, feels like, smells like, can only help.

"It'll be absolutely huge," Franklin said. "I'm so excited to go back. It's so incredible. It's absolutely gorgeous. I was 13 years old. The most I'd ever swum before was a few hundred people. I walk on in the prelims and there are 7,000 to 8,000, and I was completely blown away."

The top two in each event qualify for Team USA, but in the 100 and 200 freestyle, the top six qualify for the relays. The pressure in Omaha will be major, but barring a total collapse, Franklin will at least make the Olympic team.

Her coach, Metro State graduate Todd Schmitz, mirrors Franklin's low-key demeanor. Schmitz said there's no need to worry. She's right on schedule.

"If Missy has fun and realizes that the pool is the same size as all the ones she has swum in before, she will do some amazing things," he said.

Still, she must post times in Omaha. To block all that out, she needs more than dark goggles. She needs perspective.

"Swimming does that for me," she said. "Swimming is so unpredictable. That's one of the things that makes it so exciting is you never really know what's going to happen. You could have one of those outside smokers in lanes 1 and 8 who can absolutely dominate a race, or the person who's supposed to get first ends up last in the heat or fifth."

Missy Franklin, Jenny Simpson, Adeline Gray and three other Colorado women could be big players at the 2016 Rio OlympicsWhen people ask Missy Franklin for her thoughts about the Summer Olympics that will begin a year from Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, she hangs a warning label on her answer.